This invention relates to breastpumps, particularly motorized breastpumps for drawing breast milk.
Breastpumps are convenient for nursing mothers, because, among other things, they allow the nursing mother to draw off breast milk to feed to the child at a later time when the mother may not be present. For some mothers, breastpumps are required, particularly when the child has sucking difficulties or if the mother has problems with excessive or deficient milk production, or cannot empty completely. Some mothers also require breastpumps in the event of soreness or injury of the mammilla, or sunken mammilla.
Manual breastpumps are commonplace, primarily because they are inexpensive and easy to manufacture. However, the pressure produced by manual breastpumps can be very uneven. Particularly if they are operated improperly, the pressure can be insufficient to draw off sufficient milk, or can be excessively high, placing an inordinate strain on the skin of the breast. Some motorized breastpumps have been proposed, but have been too large and expensive.
Thus, for motorized breastpumps to compete effectively in the marketplace, they must be lightweight, portable, yet achieve good pressure regulation in defined limits, for example, between 100 and 220 millimeters of mercury (mmHg).